Issue 398: 23rd September 2022

Dear Parents and Carers,

After working at Orton Wistow for as long as I have, it got to a point where I would rarely be doing things for the first time. After taking on the Headship, it feels like I am experiencing ‘first times’ every day, and it feels as if this is my first ‘regular’ newsletter as Head after the last two being slimmed down due to the sad passing of the Queen.

It has been a very positive start to the new school year and I couldn’t be prouder of the hard work and attitude I have seen from all the children. They have settled well into their new classes and on a daily basis I am seeing children demonstrating the learning tools, following the PRIDE code and making the most of their lessons. I have spent some time in all the classes this past week and have been impressed with the quality of teaching & learning happening in all years.

Golden Rules

In my first assembly, we discussed our aspirations for the coming year and shared some of our goals. We also looked at the new Golden Rules and the children made some excellent contributions, especially around why each rule was important. Please ask your children about them.

Foundation Stage Curriculum Evening

On Wednesday 7th September we had our annual Foundation Stage Curriculum Evening and this was attended by the parents of our youngest and newest cohort in the school. Miss Porter and Mrs McIntosh shared some important and useful information about their curriculum, and it was a chance for the parents to hear about how they can support their child’s learning at home.

Years 1 - 6 Curriculum Evening

On Wednesday 5th October we will have our curriculum evening for the rest of the school (Years One to Six) and we hope to see many of you there. The focus for this will be around how you can help your child at home with their learning and the event will be similar to the Transition Evening, with separate year group sessions either side of a main presentation to everyone in the hall. Further details of this event can be found later in the newsletter and a link to the booking form will be sent home on Monday (26th).

Other Events

We are hoping for a year when we can return to all those important ‘extras’ we organise at OWPS and so far we have had the Foundation Stage Curriculum Evening, Tempest individual photos, Year Six Family Learning and Jeans 4 Genes day! Next week, a group of our Year Five children will be going on their residential to Hilltop (one of my favourite trips) and I know the staff going are looking forward to a few exciting days in Norfolk! Although I think some are a little nervous about the ‘High-Ropes’ activity!

This Week's Questions

Some of you may remember a programme called ‘Are you smarter than a ten-year-old?’ Each time I write the newsletter I plan to share with you a selection of questions that have been asked in school that week. They will cover different subjects and be from varying year groups each time, and you can test yourself to see if you are smarter than an OWPS pupil! This week’s questions are:

1. What was Christopher Columbus famous for? (Year 2 ‘Explorers’ topic)

2. Why did the Romans leave sunny Italy to invade cold, rainy Britain? (Year 4 ‘Romans’ topic)

3. Is ten million larger than 9,999,999? How do you know? (Year Six ‘In Focus’ maths question)

Good luck!

Staff News

And finally, I have some very happy news to share with you all. Mrs Fidgett is pregnant and her baby is due in January! We are all very pleased for Mrs Fidgett and her family, and we wish them all well.

I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend.

Kind regards

Mr. Marks

Headteacher

^{Photo by Dan Freeman on Unsplash}

Each week, we publish the latest achievements of the children at Orton Wistow Primary School.

Achieving the Silver Artsmark!

By Mrs McIntosh, Art Lead

We did it! OWPS has achieved the Silver Artsmark.

At the start of the year, we launched the ‘Art and Cultural’ passport! There were two main reasons for this. The first reason was an aim set for our work towards the ‘Artsmark’, which is the only creative quality standard for schools and education settings, accredited by Arts Council England. 

The second reason was the most important. After two years of lockdown and the closure or limited access to our wonderful places of art and culture, we felt it was important to inspire children to 'get back out there' and visit galleries, museums, and historical sites or just get creating! 

Alongside this, we created the @OWPSart_culture Twitter page which promoted art and culture within the school alongside exhibitions, children's visits and ideas linked to the passport challenges.

We’re extremely proud of achieving our Artsmark Silver Award. We are committed to delivering a high-quality arts and cultural education, and we look forward to continuing to grow with Artsmark.  Our wonderful ‘Arts and Culture Passport’ has been so successful. We have been able to award children lots of stamps for activities both in school and outside of school. In fact, it adds up to over 500 visits to historical sites, galleries, museums, theatres, sculpture parks and street parades! Our school is looking amazing and our passion for the arts shows in our impressive gallery and the brilliant artwork we have produced over the last year.

The Artsmark assessor commended us expressing that the ‘Core to the school's Artsmark journey has been its Cultural Passport, an invitation to engage with local cultural and arts venues as an extension of the school's 'Lockdown Challenges'. The passport concept has led to high levels of engagement by children who are enjoying getting their passports stamped, but also providing them with access to a range of cultural and historical sites, often at low or no cost. Your efforts to promote this activity on Twitter has received positive endorsement from the cultural venues who have reported increased footfall as a result. This encouragement of visits and partnerships with external agencies is highly valuable as it can build a cultural habit amongst young people and their families that lasts into the future'.

We now look forward to continuing on our Artsmark journey.

Sir Linkalot Spelling Workshop Day

By Miss Tansley, English Lead

This year, the school has a specific focus on developing writing within our pupils and one factor that plays an important role in this is spelling. As a result, on Tuesday 13th September 2022, every class at Orton Wistow Primary had a jam-packed and fun-filled day with the arrival of Sir Linkalot!

Sir Linkalot, is a new initiative and way to tackle spelling, by finding links in words and then putting these links into animations, which our children then see and learn in class. It is delivered in addition to phonics and complements, and does not complicates the strong phonics that is already taught in KS1.

The day began with a whole school assembly, where Sir Linkalot motivated the children and got them to share tricks they already knew to remember tricky spellings - many of these were mnemonics. He then gradually worked his way up the school, delivering workshops to every year group - it was a real hoot! The children were extremely engaged and the confidence they demonstrated to ‘have a go’ was to be commended, 

Sir Linkalot then delivered the staff meeting after school and ran a Parent Zoom session, which was attended phenomenally. Eighty-four Wistow families were able to attend; a record number to any parent zoom he has delivered before, so a huge thank you and I hope you found it beneficial.

For those of you who didn’t manage to attend the session, a recording of the Zoom session has been sent out in a separate email, with the access details of how to log-in to the Sir Linkalot site from home, should you wish.

Overall, it was a superb day; I am sure the children will agree.

Curriculum Evening 05.10.22

By Mr Marks, Headteacher

On Wednesday 5th October we will be hosting our annual OWPS Curriculum Evening. This event is for all parents and carers of children in Years One to Six.

The focus for this event is on how you can support your child at home with their learning. Like we did for the Transition Evening, there will be three parts to the event, and you can choose which presentations to attend, according to the age of your children. All year groups are preparing 25-minute sessions and there will be an additional presentation in the middle.

The outline for the evening is as follows:

5.50pm – Doors open

6.00pm – Year group presentations in classrooms

6.30pm – Communication and wellbeing presentation in the hall for everyone

7.00pm – Year group presentations (repeat)

7.30pm – Evening finishes

You can choose to arrive at either 5.50pm and attend the first presentation or, arrive at 6.25pm for the presentation in the hall followed by a Year Group session.

The Transition Evening in the summer term was very well attended, and we are hoping to see just as many parents and carers join us for this event. It is your chance to hear about some important things happening in school, be clear on the best ways you can help your child with their learning at home and ask their teachers related questions.

A booking form will be sent out via email on Monday 26th September for you to book onto sessions at the Curriculum evening. We look forward to seeing you on the 5th of October.

Celebrating Success 23.09.22

Here at Orton Wistow Primary School, we recognise that success comes in all different shapes and sizes! We celebrate the children's achievements in school in the Achievements section of the newsletter and website.

Many of the children, however, are also achieving things outside of school.  We would like to recognise these successes too.

It might be that your child has passed a music or dance exam, gained a karate belt, starred in a show, volunteered, taken part in a sporting event, or done something that they didn't think was possible!

If you would like to share your child's achievements with us so that we can celebrate their success, please complete the Celebrating Success form.  Contributions will be considered for inclusion in upcoming editions of the newsletter.

We look forward to hearing about your children's extracurricular achievements!

Celebrating Success this week!

Congratulations to these children in Year 6 and Year 2 for their success at the Orton Waterville Village Show on September 3rd 2022.  Here they are with their rosettes that they won.  Well done to the child in Year 6 who also won the Junior Cup for the most points across all classes in her age group. Fantastic!

Congratulations to these children in Year 3 and Year 6 who both made entries into the children's section of the Orton Waterville Village show and won lots of rosettes for their efforts. The child in Year 3 also won the shield for achieving the most points in his age group. Well done!

Discover what is coming up in the OWPS Dining Car.

Read about what is happening locally, nationally and internationally.

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